An Asylum of Angels
by Lucygoosey
Summary: Complete, contains spoilers. My version of how the first episode of Season Three might play out, from three POVs.
1. Default Chapter

Contains spoilers. This is my version of what might happen in the Season Three opener. I'm sure it bears absolutely no resemblance to what will actually happen, but it begged to be written anyway. Mutant X? Don't own 'em, but I like to borrow them every once in a while.  
  
  
  
It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum, and here they will break out in their native music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns and they mope and wallow like dogs.  
  
- Ralph Waldo Emerson  
  
The loss hit Brennan the hardest.  
  
I don't know if it was because he was the one least allowed to mourn. Certainly he held it together while the both of us went to pieces. Leadership of the team had fallen on his shoulders more and more often, and in retrospect, it almost seems as if Adam knew what was going to happen. But I've yet to see Brennan cry in front of us. I don't know if he's even been able to in private. Mostly he just seems angry all the time, not at us, but at. . . I don't know, life, I guess. Sometimes I wish he would just break down and lose it, and then we could all cry together. Maybe then I wouldn't feel that there's something in him ready to crack.  
  
For a while I worried more about Shalimar than about Brennan. Her family, her pack, was torn asunder, and she raged and wept until I thought she'd go mad. Adam was more a father to her than her own father, and Emma was her friend, confident, sister. To lose them both at the same time. . . well, I don't know how any of us stood it. But Shalimar is probably the strongest one of us, and she managed to pull herself together after a few days. I might have gone mad myself but for the work in Adam's lab, archiving, decrypting, reorganizing everything. He laid it all out there for me, as if he knew that's the work I'd have to do someday. His last act was to put the key in my hand; literally, an electronic key to a holographically hidden wallsafe behind his desk that none of us knew about until that moment. He kept the encryption codes to everything there, his research, his databases, his patents, his secret accounts that funded everything. And his last message was there.  
  
"Jesse, if you're playing this," said the holographic image to me as I sat alone in his office, "then I'm gone, and everything that makes MutantX what it is, is now in your hands. I only hope and pray that you and the other members of the team are safe." I closed my eyes, Emma's face drifting before me. "I've left precise instructions about how to access the money accounts, and my research. There is also a list of people to whom my research can be parceled out. They're people I trust, people who will continue the work in the same spirit in which I began it: to undo the wrong I did in my arrogance and pride, and to enable mutants to find a place to live in this world in peace." He paused, and I almost felt that the real Adam was there, looking through those holographic eyes at me. "I can only say that I'm sorry. I believed I was saving lives with the work I was doing, and I never once stopped to consider the ramifications of what was happening to all of you until it was too late. I hope that someday, somehow, you can all find it in your hearts to forgive me." Oh, Adam. "It all depends on you now, Jess. Brennan will be able to handle the field work, but he's going to need you. The way I need you. Your counsel and guidance, to keep everything together, to keep it all going. Don't let my work die with me, Jess. Don't let MutantX die."  
  
I sat there alone for hours afterwards, reliving that day at NaxCon, trying to figure out what we might have done differently. But all that came to me was the awul memory of destruction of the building, all of us clinging to the rapidly tilting floor for our lives, and then falling… falling into wet blackness, and afterwards, on the shore. . . waking up to the sight and sound of Shalimar running back and forth along the shoreline, screaming frantically for Emma. Her father trailed along after her, trying to calm her, but she swatted his hands away and kept screaming and searching. I was shivering and disoriented, nearly dead with the cold. Shalimar didn't seem to feel it, and I couldn't see Brennan or Adam anywhere. All I knew was that I needed to get help.  
  
I remember stumbling along the shoreline toward lights in the distance, and then nearly falling over Brennan, crouching there among the rocks. He didn't move or speak. I put my hand on his shoulder, thinking he was hurt, and that's when I saw Adam cradled in his arms. I knelt down, the cold forgotten. The wind had died down, and the ruined NaxCon building blazed over the water like a torch, so that I could see Adam's eyes like two gleaming black gems in his bone-white face. His back was broken, so I don't think he really felt anything, but at the time I didn't know that.  
  
He was saying something to Brennan, who sat there holding him like a father cradling a sick child. I bent closer to catch it, and that's when Adam looked straight at me.  
  
"Jess. . . in my coat pocket. . ."  
  
Obediently, I reached into the pocket and drew out the small plastic case. Adam stared at me, and I knew he wanted me to open it. Inside was the flat casing of an electronic key, barely the size of a credit card. I looked at Adam.  
  
"Behind. . . my desk," he said. "It's all there."  
  
"What? What, Adam?"  
  
"You. . . Jesse, you. . ." His eyes gleamed up at me, reflecting firelight, so that it was a while before I realized he was dead. I knelt there on the rocks staring at him while Brennan held him, and the three of us could have been made of stone. There was no sound, no movement. We were frozen in time, because I knew if I took a breath or blinked my eyes, or made any movement at all, it would become real and my heart would be torn from my chest.  
  
"ADAM! ADAM! ADAM!" Shalimar screamed hysterically behind me, and then I was standing, holding her back, how I don't know. I don't remember much more than that. Brennan rose with Adam in his arms, his face like a mask, and we walked toward the lights where police and firemen were forming rescue teams. Behind us, the ruins of NaxCon blazed above the water. I remember thinking no one could possibly be found alive in there, and it turned out that I was right. Eckhardt and his henchmen had fled. Any workers still in the building when it blew up were dead. Emma vanished into the sea. And Adam died.  
  
I don't know what happened to Shalimar's father. He followed us, and then he was gone. I don't know if Shalimar drove him away, but I suspect she did. He hated Adam Kane, he had always hated Shal's mutation, and I don't know if she can ever make her peace with that, even though he seemed repentant at the end.  
  
Later Brennan routed me out of Adam's office, forcing me to rest, and to eat, and doing the same with Shalimar. He sat with us as we wailed and mourned, and made sure we were taken care of, and eventually forced us to come to terms with our loss. What he did for himself, I'll probably never know, but I'm sure it wasn't enough. He's gone silent except when he's laying out plans for a new mission. I miss his joking around, his cheating at basketball, the hungry looks he gave Shalimar when he thought nobody was looking. Something's gone out of him, and if he doesn't get it back, I don't know how long he can go on. He's saved us, but he needs to save himself.   
  
I started making half-hearted, fumbling efforts in the lab, but I'm no genius like Adam. His research has been sent to the people on his list as he asked, so it will go on, and I will coordinate the results. I'm at the heart of a giant web now, extending everywhere, dedicated to continuing the work Adam started. It won't die. It will outlive all of us. 


	2. Chapter 2

I train every day. I always did, but now I push myself harder and longer than I ever thought possible. It's the only way to get through the day, and at night I prowl and hunt. Sleep becomes an option only when I can no longer go on, because with sleep comes dreaming, and every night I see Adam and Emma, clinging to each other, watching me. I feel that they're there to keep me safe, but they don't know how much it hurts to see them and not be able to touch them, speak to them. I know I'll mourn them forever.  
  
But the mission goes on. That's what Adam would have wanted. I only wish I could tell him we haven't given up, that we never will. I wish I could take back the terrible things I said to him before I went to NaxCon. I loved Adam more than my own father. Adam was my father, certainly more so than Nicholas Fox ever was.  
  
I sent Nicholas away after the destruction of NaxCon. It was heartless. He'd lost everything. But I couldn't look at his face anymore. I couldn't hear him say Adam's name, knowing how much he hated him. How much he hated my mutation. Maybe someday we can reconcile, but that day is not now, with this pain in my heart so fresh and all-consuming.  
  
I worry about the guys. Jesse seems to be getting it together; he threw himself into Adam's work, and I feel pretty confident that it will go on. It's more far-flung now, but our central mission remains the same: rescue as many mutants as we can, make things as right in this world as we can. Brennan has more or less taken over as leader of the team, but I worry about him. He seems older now, more careworn under the burden of leadership. He's looked out for us. I don't know that Jess and I could have made it without him. But the toll on him must have been horrendous.  
  
As much as I mourn Emma, I know Brennan misses her more. She was like a sister to all of us, but she was the only one who completely understood Brennan and accepted him for what he was. She could get to him when none of the rest of us could. Those walls of his were coming down, but without her, I don't think he'll ever be open to anyone again. My heart aches, because I know I could have loved him. Maybe I still can. Someday. Not yet.  
  
Brennan's looking for new team members. He says we need to broaden our range of powers, and Jesse agrees, so I haven't objected. With only three of us, maybe we are stretched too thin, so we do need backup we can depend on. But I have my doubts I don't know where he's going to get somebody like that, and I don't know what will happen to the dynamic between the three of us when someone new comes in. Brennan knows a lot of people in the underworld, people with street smarts and the courage to take risks. Even in his wound-up state, I trust him to do what he thinks he's right. He burns with fierce determination, as if he's trying to make something up to Adam. But still. . .  
  
That night, on the shore outside of NaxCon, with chaos going on all around us, Brennan held me. I was as cold as ice, as cold as death, sitting there staring at the flames eating up what was left of my father's company. Nicholas had tried to talk to me, but I refused to answer him, I couldn't answer him. My eyes were on the running lights of boats in the water, searching for survivors, and all I could think was: Emma's out there. If not for Brennan's strong arms around me, I might have flung myself into the water to search for her myself. Adam was dead, so Emma couldn't be dead too.  
  
They never found her. In a small, secret part of my heart, I still hope she's alive. My head tells me it isn't so, but my heart will keep hoping. 


	3. Chapter 3

I thought I would die. I wanted to die, and I thought it was the world's biggest cheat on me yet that I didn't. Sitting on that rocky beach, holding the body of the first man who ever trusted me and treated me like a worthwhile person, I thought my heart would swell and break and I would be free. There can be no explanation for why I am alive today and Adam Kane and Emma DeLauro are dead. If I could, I would hate God, but I can't because he isn't there. The universe is cold and empty.  
  
I shut off the grief because I had to take care of Jesse and Shalimar. They were lost, broken. Jesse believed in Adam with all his heart, and how I envied him that. But the payoff was that his universe was shattered with Adam's death. Shalimar too: Adam, Emma, her father. I thought of losing the two of them as well as Adam and Emma. Being left alive and alone again was more than I could bear, so I got up and did what I had to do.  
  
But they're all right now, or at least as all right as they can be. It's only been six months. Not nearly enough time for the pain to recede adequately, but they're coping day by day. Jesse spends hours in the lab, networking with Adam's eggheads, making sure everything runs smoothly. There are a lot of mutants who are still alive because of him. Shalimar trains every day, killing her pain with physical activity. God help the bad guys who get in her way. I know she cries at night. I know Jesse cries too, sometimes. I don't cry, because I don't dare. If I started crying, I don't think I could stop. I think my power would build up in me until it exploded, and I don't think I would even try to control it.  
  
I told them we'd rebuild the team, and we will. We'll need help, the three of us can't do it alone. I have to be careful to find the right people, though. We're still pretty fragile, so whoever comes in is going to have a lot of our baggage to cope with, at first. It won't be easy for them, because there are two ghosts here now who won't be superceded.  
  
Shalimar and I hardly look at each other anymore. There was a time when I thought. . . but the pain is still too fresh, and so is the guilt. Shalimar thinks she's to blame for all of it. Sometimes she blames her father, but always, always she comes back to the argument she had with Adam, the last words she ever spoke to him. She mourns Adam more than she mourns her father, because Adam was her true father, the one who guided her into womanhood and accepted and loved her for what she is. Nothing I say seems to penetrate the shields she's put up around herself. If only Emma were still here, she'd have someone to talk to, confide in. But Emma is gone too, leaving an absence that is cavernous. And not just for Shalimar. I never knew Emma was there, in my head, until she was gone. She was the only person in the whole world who ever understood me and didn't care. No one can ever accept me like that again.  
  
I know it was really my fault. I constantly questioned Adam, constantly doubted him. How could the others not, when I persisted in pointing out every flaw, every inconsistency, bucking him every chance I got? Adam saved me from myself, and I repaid him by distrusting him. Incredibly, the man cared about me, and I've never been able to figure out why. I would cut off my right arm if only I could take back some of the things I said to him, the blame I laid on him for what we are.   
  
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.  
  
I keep busy, and I make sure to lead every mission. I have to be there to make sure nothing happens to the team. I couldn't stand it if anything did. I see them out, and I see them back in. Every time. And now I know that this is what Adam did, how he felt. There are odd moments, when I'm alone, that I think I won't be able to take another step, or think another thought, or even survive another heartbeat. My breath goes, and I have to reach out for a wall or something, and I feel Adam and Emma are close at those times. They would never blame me for anything, I know that. But in those moments, the sense of them is overwhelming, as if I could walk into darkness with them and never turn back. But I pull myself back from that brink, because I can't leave Jesse and Shalimar.   
  
Adam wouldn't want me to. 


End file.
